


Hopes and Fears

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, CW: Abortion Mention, F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 13:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13412523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Four years after Gideon is returned to them, Rumpelstiltskin supports Belle as she faces her fears for another pregnancy.For the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “Please, don’t tell anyone.”





	Hopes and Fears

 

“Please, don’t tell anyone.”

Rumpelstiltskin looks from Belle’s distraught and tear-stained face down to the positive pregnancy test in her shaking hands and back again.

“Of course not, sweetheart.”

He wraps his arms around her, letting her bury her face in his shoulder and sob quietly. She has been tense and highly strung in these past few days since she realised her period was late, and now that their suspicions have been confirmed, her emotions are in turmoil. In any other circumstances, Rumpelstiltskin would be jumping for joy at the prospect of having another child with Belle, but her profound fear leaves him unable to muster up any positive feeling at the moment. He can quite understand her distress. After everything that happened whilst she was pregnant with Gideon, it’s only natural that the experience would leave scars. At least this time, she has him to help her through it.

At length, Belle’s crying subsides and she pulls her face away from Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulder, curling in closer to his side where they’re sitting on the sofa, and she stares out at the room with unseeing eyes, her mind elsewhere.

“Belle,” he begins, once the interminable silence has stretched on between them for too long and he’s starting to worry, “whatever you want to do, I’m here for you.”

Belle nods mutely. “I don’t know,” she says. “I just don’t know. Part of me keeps saying that this time will be different, and that there’s nothing out there to threaten us this time; we’re together and I know you’d do anything to protect me and this baby. Part of me wants to have a normal pregnancy, the full nine months of swollen ankles and throwing up. I want to have that because I missed out on it with Gideon. Then I just remember having Gideon and everything that happened, and I can’t help being scared that something bad is going to happen again. And it’s not just Gideon. Pregnancies in Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest don’t exactly have a great track record. I can’t go through that again, Rumpel, I can’t go through all that pain again.”

“I know, my love. And we’ll make sure that you don’t.” Rumpelstiltskin just holds her. If Belle decides not to go through with this pregnancy then he’ll be sad, yes, but it’s not the end of the world. They still have plenty of time to expand their family, and they can do it without Belle going through another traumatic pregnancy.

“I’m glad you’re here, Rumpel,” Belle says. “I wouldn’t ever want to do this alone again.”

“I’ll always be here,”

Once Belle is sure that she’s not going to burst into tears again, she gets up and makes tea, disposing of the pregnancy test in the process. Tea is something that they’ve always had as a ritual when things get tough. Tea will always see them through. It grounds them, gets their heads on straight again. Once they’ve had their tea, Belle’s expression becomes pensive rather than fearful, and she traces a fingertip around the rim of her teacup.

“I want to have this baby,” she says, and there’s already a depth of love in her voice for this child. “I want Gideon to have a brother or sister. He’s old enough now. And I want to actually be pregnant. I’m just worried that I want it too much, and that I’m tempting fate.”

Belle has a point. Whilst hers is not the first pregnancy in the four years since the final battle, hers will be the first ‘high profile’ pregnancy, so to speak. The first where malevolent entities might want to harm her unborn child due to its parentage and its potential. And since Gideon was the last such pregnancy in Storybrooke, there’s every reason to be fearful.

“I know how you feel,” Rumpelstiltskin says. He’s just as apprehensive as Belle is, but where Belle has always been the bringer of light and positivity to their relationship, now that task must fall to him. They can both be scared, but they can’t both doom-monger, or they’ll never pick themselves out of that downward spiral. “I’m scared too, but I think we have to put it in perspective. In these last four years since we got Gideon back, nothing out of the ordinary has happened. No visitors from other realms, no strange magical malfeasance. Everything’s been completely under control.”

Belle snorted. “Knowing our luck, something will crop up next week.”

“And if it does, then we’ll be ready for it and we’ll be able to fight it,” Rumpelstiltskin asserts. “Before, everything used to happen one thing after another; the town had barely got over one disturbance before the next one arrived, and there was always more than one thing going on at once. Now that we have peace at last, if something does go wrong then it will be all hands on deck to provide a united front against it, and together we should be able to handle whatever fate decides to throw at us. I promise.”

Belle nods. “I guess that the circumstances are very different this time around. So much of what happened with Gideon was of our own making, and we’re in a far better place than we were back then.”

They’re in the best place that they’ve ever been in. They’re together, with no secrets or lies between them, and they have Gideon and another one on the way. Rumpelstiltskin hasn’t used his magic in years; there’s been no need. He had taken on that power to protect his family, but for these past few blissful years of happiness, there has been nothing to threaten them, and they have not needed his protection.

Belle gives a little sigh, leaning into his side. “I don’t think that we could be in a better place to have another baby,” she says, and she takes Rumpelstiltskin’s hand, interlacing her fingers with him and pressing them over her flat stomach. “I’m still going to be scared though.”

“I think we both will be, at least until the baby arrives,” Rumpelstiltskin admits, because there’s no weakness in admitting to the fear. “But we’ll handle it. We can get through it. Fear can be good sometimes, it keeps us alert.”

“You do know I’ll be checking for danger around every corner for the next nine months, right?”

“Well, I’ll be checking around all the other corners, so we’re even.”

For the first time in the last few days, Belle laughs. “We’re a pair. But better safe than sorry when it comes to our babies, yes?”

“Always.”

The mood is lighter, and without having explicitly said anything, they both know that they will have this baby, however paranoid they might get in the meantime.

“I think I’d like it to be a girl,” Belle says. “Then we’d have one of each. And I don’t have any other boys’ names picked out.”

“What would you call our daughter?” Rumpelstiltskin asks.

“I’d like Colette as a middle name, for my mother. And I like flower names. Rose. Lily. Iris. What about you?”

Well, he wouldn’t name his daughter after his mother, that’s for sure, and Rumpelstiltskin thinks back to the spinsters who raised him before shaking his head. No, the women would understand him not honouring them in his child’s name. A first name is important, and it needs to be unique. Giving someone the same first name as a treasured and beloved relative is placing a huge burden on their shoulders; they will forever be trying to live up to the person that they were named after. Whilst Rumpelstiltskin was touched by the gesture in the Nolans naming their son after Neal, he can’t help thinking of the weight of responsibility that will fall upon him when he finds out that he was named for someone the rest of the town thinks of as a sacrificial hero. Likewise little Robyn, named for her father who died in one of the most final of ways.

“I don’t mind,” he says eventually. “I’m sure that when we see her, a name will come.”

“And she might turn out to be a boy,” Belle says. “I’d better start thinking up some more boys’ names.”

“You could always resort to your books again. Perhaps not Romeo, though, if you’re looking not to tempt fate.”

Belle gives a huff of laughter and bats his arm playfully, but then she falls into pensive silence again.

“Belle?”

“Please don’t tell anyone yet,” she says. “I just fear that as soon as we make it public, things will start happening, and I’m not ready for that yet. It’ll be just our little secret for a while.”

“Belle, it can be just our little secret until the moment you give birth, if you so wish,” Rumpelstiltskin leans in and kisses her. “I promise.”

The living room door creaks and Gideon’s tousled head appears around it, blinking sleepily.

“Mama? Papa?”

Belle gets up off the sofa and takes his little hand, leading him back towards Gold. “Hey sweetheart. Can’t sleep?”

Gideon shakes his head. “Bad dreams.”

“Oh dear, that’s not good. But you know that they’re only dreams, and you know that they can’t hurt you.”

Gold says nothing, but he and Belle share a look over the top of Gideon’s head. When it comes to dreams, especially with Belle in her current state, they can’t be too careful.

“What was it about?” Rumpelstiltskin asks.

“There was a giant crab,” Gideon says. “It was trying to eat Leroy’s boat.”

Rumpelstiltskin lets out a sigh of relief, and Belle has a similar expression on her face. Gideon, still not quite awake, just looks puzzled.

“Are you all right Mama?”

“Yes, sweetheart. I’m going to be just fine. And don’t worry about the giant crabs. Leroy won’t let anything remotely sinister get near his boat.”

Gideon settles on the sofa between them, nodding off almost immediately. They won’t tell him about his new sibling yet. Gideon is a talkative child and popular among the townsfolk, and they just can’t trust him to keep Belle’s pregnancy a secret yet. But the time will come when he can proudly announce that he’s going to have a brother or sister, and Rumpelstiltskin can’t wait.

It’s going to be a scary time, certainly, but between the three of them, they’ll see it through, and their trio will soon become a perfect quartet.


End file.
